Literature isn't a moral beauty contest. Its power arises from the authority and audacity with which the impersonation is pulled off; the belief it inspires is what counts.
Philip RothEverybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise.
Philip RothNothing lasts and yet nothing passes either, and nothing passes just because nothing lasts.
Philip RothI turn sentences around. That's my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and turn it around again.
Philip Roth